UK: annual election for directors?

Ahead of the publication of the UK's revised Corporate Governance Code next week, today's Daily Telegraph newspaper reports - see here - that the Financial Reporting Council has decided that the Code should require the entire board to face annual election by shareholders.

The newspaper also reports that in a lecture given last night, Sir David Walker stated that he now supported the annual election of the whole board. In his recent report concerning bank governance (here, pdf), Sir David recommended that the chairman should face annual election, with the board keeping "under review the possibility of transitioning to annual election of all board members".